all of the stars have faded away
by quorra laraex
Summary: "Never fall in love." / In which Keira disobeys her father and Jak never really was one to listen, anyways. — Jak/Keira


**notes:** honestly, writing a fic for Jak and Daxter alone has never been one of my plans in life. but i really couldn't help it because i faced a day of nostalgia and i don't know what triggered it but it made me realize how much i absolutely adored this game and this pairing.  
**notes2:** also, this fic is revolving around the main trilogy. (which _killed_ me by the way, since jakeira is supposedly not the canon pairing—_like wtf_!?)

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**all of the stars have faded away**  
(_but try not to worry, you'll see them some day_)

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The Hagai girl with flimsy locks of an aqua ombre is six years old when her father warns her to never fall in love. _Ew, boys are gross!_, she had squeaked in response. It is that same day when Samos, hair already going white, and vision already very unclear, introduces her to a boy whom he is to mentor. Samos tells her he's going to be the world's hero one day. His name is Jak.

Jak has hair that reminds her of fire and eyes like the sky. He's quiet, and his (only) friend—whom is obnoxious, arrogant, and a first class _jackass_—with the name Daxter, informs her that he's just shy and it's in his nature. The two steal a glance at the tan blonde, his mouth slightly agape along with furrowed brows because they're obliviously making him nervous. It isn't until the girl smiles at him, her hand gestured in front of her little sundress.

He takes it, awkwardly and shakes it.

"I'm Keira," and then it's like an instinct. She likes Jak. As a friend, of course. She wouldn't love him, though, she thinks. She's far from it, and she doesn't deem herself as the type. But she _did_ like him, and a load of a lot more than Daxter, that's for sure.

/

On her ninth birthday, Daxter pours a bowl of cake batter in her hair. It's a prank, that was only supposed to ensure hilarity, yet only amusing himself as he cracked into a fit of laughter. Infuriated and indignant to boys other than her father, she stomps off to the well to wash her locks after aggravatingly shoving Daxter into the table.

Jak, supposedly helping her make a cake of vanilla and an assortment of fruit, watches the whole charade with silence. Before strutting out to find the damsel, he looks over his shoulder to shoot his best friend a condescending glare, and it's enough to make Daxter regret his joke.

Keira's sitting at the stone ledge, running water with her wet hand through teal tresses. He surprises her, sitting beside her and dipping his hand into the water collected with a bucket, and soothing out the sticky chunks from her hair. She looks up at him, her eyes slightly red. He doesn't see tears—Keira never cries, feisty as she is. But he does see a softness somewhere in the middle of the rim of her orbs, one that he's never really seen before—not even when she's looking at Samos.

_I guess not _all_ boys are repulsive_, she decides.

/

"Daddy says you're going to be really great some day, you know that?" she murmurs as she stares off at where the sky meets the outline of Misty Island. "I told him he was misinformed."

Something between either a scoff or a grunt is heard to her right, and she nudges him playfully.

"You don't need to strive to be great, Jak," Keira reassures with her usual glowing smile. He won't know that her smile is what will keep him holding onto his humanity and what he'll have left in the years to come. "I think you already are."

And they sit there, on the edge of the wooden dock with their hands resting beside one another and eyes pondering over the future that could be—with the _naivety_ of thirteen year old minds allow them to believe what could be.

/

Keira is fifteen, with curvier hips and longer legs. It's only natural for the two boys to take the time to ogle their female pal for a few teenage-boy minutes. Jak, still as modest and shy as ever, attempts looking away and even (sometimes) restrains himself from looking further below her chin. Daxter, on the other hand, is a completely different (and perverted) story.

Ignoring Daxter's attempt to sneak a peek at unrevealed skin, Keira does not miss the flush on Jak's face that surprisingly ignited a staccato rhythm beneath her ribs and slight hormonal arousal. He had never looked at her that way before, and well—it'd be a lie if she said she didn't like this attention.

And as a growing girl with a sprout of _needs_, she likes to take matters into her own hands, taking this leverage to her own advantage.

With a flip of a lock of hair, batting eyelashes, bending a bit lower to reach whatever had _fallen_ from her grasp than usual, and some senseless flirting (with maybe, occasional "innocent" sliding of a slender thumb along his apparel—seemingly along his chest) always did the trick.

(and he shouldn't be letting her do this to him, he knows that. Samos had already warned him to not advance in on his daughter, let alone be _near_ her...

but Jak never was one to listen)

She didn't need to hear words from his mouth or the stuttering that would come out if he even _tried_, because it was all in his body language that confirmed it—_yes_, she had him wrapped around her finger. It's in the way she could feel the hammering in his chest and how his eyes were locked on hers and the cherry-red explosion on his ears.

But Keira doesn't like him like that—of course she doesn't, she tells herself over and over and over. Even during the times their lips almost lock.

/

Two and a half years later, when Jak is found, the gaze he holds on her stings more than the words that slip past her lips. She tells him he's different, and they both know it is an understatement. It feels like there's venom in her eyes, and Keira finally remembers what it is like to cry. She hadn't shed tears like this since she was a child, lost in her father's arms and screaming for her mother.

The only reason she hadn't allowed this weakness to take over her when Jak was gone for over a year, kidnap and imprisoned, was because of her father's reassurance that he was going to come out alive—and then she knows, with that child-like optimism she carried, that she had overlooked what truly would have happened. _Jak's alive_, she thinks, biting her tongue as they stare at each other in a solemn silence. But the eyes she once remembered, a deep, deep blue that softened at the sight of her and felt as if it connected them in an emotional bond—a childhood link, is vanished. His eyes look through her, _past_ her, graying and broken with a man who knows suffering.

Eyes downcast turn up to his, walking toward him with fear she hopes he does not sense. "I can help you," she states, and Jak wonders where the confidence in her voice has gone. "I can help you get through this."

"You wouldn't understand," Jak says as if it's a fact. There's no hesitation in his voice. He is not timid, is not shy, is not scared. It's dark, deep, and is successful in sending a shiver down her spine. And just like that, he shuts her down and closes her off as easy as a light switch, when he turns around and walks to leave her in the essence of his cold tone.

Still feisty and outspoken and filled with _hope_—something he has long forgotten, "I can fix you."

"I'm not one of your mechanisms," he grits through his teeth, unwilling to pivot his head to meet those eyes he used to dream of. "And I'm not broken."

He trails off, then, and there are sudden rocks in Keira's stomach, weighing her down and eating her up because his words were capable of working as an amplifier to her very being. And suddenly, she feels like the broken one.

/

It is when Keira Hagai is nineteen years old when she learns that she should have listened to her father's warning years and years and years ago.

She and Jak have grown to be separate people, once connected by a link formed by an innocent combination of childhood crushes, first loves, and friendship wrapped in hope, optimism—everything warm, bright, luminescent and sweet on the tongue.

And she learns that perhaps, this _bond_ (her father likes to call it) was doomed from the very start. Jak, with his inevitable saving, pride and strength, suffers and continues to suffer—and Keira learns that she cannot save him, and that the only one who could cure him, is himself. And that boy, with eyes like the sky and hair resembling fire, (whom already shows interests in women who suit his now darker personell) who takes the time to spare her glances and give her somewhat smiles looking for a nostalgic hope—usually, a silly little grin that would make him feel a comfortable warmth that's only natural for a first love to be capable of giving him—will always be believed as her hero.

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_fin_.

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**notes3:** i hope you enjoyed that! i'm super late on this fandom, i know, don't shoot me. but if you_ have_ made it this far, i really would like to know your thoughts!


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